ANNcast 47: The League of Extraordinary Supernerds

Since it's such a slow news month (and that whole Black Butler flap really brought this discussion to the forefront), we invited two of our favorite ANNCast regulars, Mike Toole and Daryl Surat, to climb onboard for a roundtable discussion of the rifts and wounds in anime fandom and why exactly so many people tell creators of comics they love to go jump when they're asked to not pirate comics anymore. It's a conundrum, for sure, so we've formed a league... a league of justice, perhaps - to sit around and talk about it for a long time. It's fun!

This was a very interesting ANNcast. The topic discussed is often a touchy one for those who don't actually support the anime and manga industry and that's what the whole thing is about.

The day after the Manga-ka who does Black Butler posted her blog about telling people to stop stealing her work I saw NOTHING but people basically saying screw you to her and that she is a horrible person for even trying to get people to stop. Seriously it's sad.

People thought she was over reacting and she really isn't. Think of it from this simple little break down.

She draws her manga for a publisher and they continue to renew only as long as she pulls in readers(downloading people don't count) so if she fails to draw in enough people because of that they will drop her and she will then basically have no job and no way of making money. Therefor no food and will have quite a horrible time in life after that.

And to tell you the truth it's not all to uncommon for up and coming Manga-ka.

People really need to learn that they are never entitled to Manga and anime and that the creators behind this properties are not super rich people and they more often then not barely get by with what they have(this includes big names as well) and downloading is basically stealing their livelihood.